Chris Barraza
EVERYTHING BUT ME, 2025
cast concrete with steel plaque
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YOUR HANDS HOLD EVERYTHING BUT ME AND NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU PULL YOUR BODY INTO MINE YOU WILL NEVER HOLD ME BECAUSE THE SHELL OF MY BODY IS JUST AN EMPTY CARCASS THAT I WILL SOON LEAVE BEHIND FOR YOU TO CRY FOR AND SPEAK FOR AND THEN TRIP OVER WHEN EVERYTHING PILES UP AROUND YOU LIKE TIME ALLOWS IT TO DO AND WHILE MY BODY DECAYS AND BREAKS APART INTO A MILLION FIREFLIES INFINITELY EXPANDING INTO THE NIGHT LIKE THE UNIVERSE THAT WILL ALWAYS AND ENDLESSLY REFORM THE DUST THAT MY BODY BECOMES INTO MY BODY AGAIN AND AGAIN BUT THE TEMPEST THAT KICKS UP WINDS DRIVING UNDER MY FEET TOWARD SOMETHING INEVITABLE WILL NEVER REARRANGE ME IN THIS WAY THAT YOU HAVE LOVED BECAUSE I HAVE BECOME FULLY UNCOUPLED FROM MY BODY LIKE THE SUN AND ITS HEAT WHICH YOU HAVE ALWAYS IMAGINED WERE PERPETUALLY INTERTWINED BUT ARE INSTEAD A DUALITY THAT RESIDES IN TWO DIFFERENT PARTS OF YOUR BODY THAT IS YOU AND YOUR BODY SEPARATE BUT CONJOINED LIKE MINE THAT NOW YOU PRESS AGAINST IN SOME FUTILE ATTEMPT TO REACH ME WHICH WILL NEVER BE FULLY REALIZED BECAUSE I LIVE INSIDE OF YOU IN THE SUNLIT CORNERS OF THE ROOM THAT ARE OVERLOOKED FOR LIFETIMES AND THEN ONE DAY REVERED AS A PLACE OF BEAUTY JUST LIKE THE CRACKING THUNDER OF YOUR LUNGS WHEN WE SMILE AT EACH OTHER AND WON’T YOU HOLD THE REAL ME IN YOUR EYES FOR JUST THE LAST FEW MOMENTS THAT MY BODY ALLOWS IT BEFORE MY CHEST COLLAPSES AND I TOO AM FORCED TO BE A GHOST HAUNTING YOU AS YOU MAKE COFFEE AND STARE OUT THE WINDOW LOOKING FOR CARDINALS BECAUSE THEY ARE MESSENGERS FROM THE DEAD AND MAYBE THEY ARE ME AND I HOPE YOU FIND SOME PEACE IN THEM BUT BEFORE YOU MUST DISSECT THE CORPOREAL FORM FROM ITSELF THAT IS THE SOUL BECAUSE THE BODY IS JUST A VESSEL FOR THE SPIRIT THAT FLOWS THROUGH IT AND OUT ITS MOUTH AND INTO THE WORLD AND MY BODY CAN BE RIPPED APART LIMB FROM LIMB AND MY CHEST CAN COLLAPSE AGAINST THE FOREST FLOOR AND I CAN BE SEWN BACK TOGETHER BY BODIES THAT ARE NOT WHAT THEY CONTAIN UNTIL I AM A HAPHAZARD AMALGAMATION OF BROKEN SPUTTERING PARTS JUST BARELY WHIRRING AT A VOLUME YOUR EARS ARE LOSING THE ABILITY TO HEAR AND WHEN I FINALLY LEAVE MYSELF I WILL BE FREED FROM THE SHACKLES OF MY PHYSICAL FORM TO LIVE FULLY IN YOUR MIND AS MEMORY
c.b.
This piece presents a dying or injured body that is eroding into the ground. Each of the five segments contains a defining characteristic – fingers, toes, half of a face, the curve of the knees, and a resting arm – and this dissolves into a mass of concrete. The use of concrete is both inspired by the growing brutalist, commercial world, and a critique of its inhumanness. It is an attempt to bring tenderness to this utilitarian material that is so often used for efficiency and strength.
The plaque on the back of the head piece is oriented so that the viewer must lie down next to the piece. I was thinking of a hospital bed and a person barely clinging to life here. They are immobile or slowed to an almost tectonic point, sinking into the bed, thin sheet uncomfortably clinging to their body like claws. So, when the viewer lies next to the piece, they have the opportunity to hold it and weave their limbs through the gaps between the cast components. Then, they are confronted with “YOUR HANDS HOLD EVERYTHING BUT ME.” The word “EVERYTHING” is bisected to form a double entendre. The viewer’s hands are literally holding everything but what makes a person who they are, and there is also the opportunity to interpret it as the viewer not even holding the body itself. In this way, I wanted to look into the body and soul of a person as interconnected but distinctly separate parts of a person. So even though the body may be falling apart here, everything that one may remember a person as is completely intact.
The above section is a continuation of the plaque. It is an anxious run-on sentence said by the piece as it attempts to share its last string of wisdom before dying. Its delirium resolves into poetry, and it drifts in and out of abstraction as the body drifts in and out of life. Here, the piece does not even have the time left to breath between thoughts, and instead it presents a torrent of language.
The front of the body features a sunken-in chest with space for the viewer to lie inside of it. This allows the viewer to firstly hold the piece and then be held by it. Further, the sunken chest reflects the removal of the person’s spirit. So, all that is left is the body, which is argued as the least memorable part of the person.
With this piece, I really wanted to explore injury to its fullest extent. There is a sanctity of the body and its health, reasonably so. But the body is just a vessel of personhood. A vessel that is broken, hated, and often used as a means of division. I think back to my grandparents' own bodies as they began to fail and memories of them in hospital beds for the last times. When I think of them and their impact on me though, they exist outside their bodies. They exist as warmth and love and anger and multitudes, but most of all as memory.
c.b.